Tuesday, August 2, 2011

fresh strawberry fruit tart

I have always wanted to make a fruit tart. The kind that has a thick layer of pastry cream, with fresh fruit arranged beautifully on top. I finally had a chance to make one while my cousin Angie was in town a few weeks ago. On the second night of her visit we invited my mom, my other cousin Yvonne and her fiance Marvin to come over for dinner. Mom cooked up a variety of delicious Chinese dishes, and I made dessert.

I've seen a few recipes that call for a layer of melted chocolate in between the pie crust and the pastry cream, to keep the crust from getting soggy, so I decided to try it. First, I blind baked my pie crust, using my favorite all-butter recipe. Then after it cooled, I spread on a thin layer of melted dark chocolate. While that set in the fridge, I prepared a batch of pastry cream (I used the recipe from my bostom cream pie birthday cake) and also let it cool in the fridge.

After the pastry cream cooled, I spread it into the tart, then put the whole tart back in the fridge to set once more. Finally, I sliced up some fresh strawberries, and arranged them in a nice pattern on top of the tart.

When we finally cut into the tart for dessert, I realized that the melted (hardened) chocolate made it very difficult to cut into - both with the knife, and when eating it with a fork. So although I loved the taste of the chocolate in the tart, next time I'll probably leave it out.

Can't wait to make another tart! Next time I'll use a varity of berries!

Pastry cream and strawberries are just heavenly together! This looks amazing and I would have had to have more than one piece. Perhaps you could use chocolate ganache to get the layer of flavor in there, it has a much softer consistency. Great post!

Looks so pretty. I bet the chocolate was good even if it was hard to cut through. I have lined the bottom of a crust with cream cheese mixed with a touch of sugar and it kept my crust from getting soggy.

I have 2 other ways to seal the bottom of the tart that both work really well.

1. After the pie/tart shell has cooled, apply a thin layer of apple or apricot jelly (melted for a minute or so in microwave). If you can't find the jelly then you can use preserves, just melt it then strain out any fruit pieces.

2. While the pie/tart shell is warm apply a thin layer of egg whites (mix them up up a little first but don't make them frothy). The shell is still hot so it will cook the whites, but if you want you can put in back in the oven for a minute.

I also had the chocolate problem too and I realized that my "thin" layer wasn't really THIN. Looking at your pic I'd say you might have done that too. Chocolate works best if if you make a SUPER THIN layer. Its like you're making a crumb coat for shell. Use warm but not chocolate and a warm but not hot shell to make the chocolate "stretch" that way you use way less. Then put it in you freezer as close to you fan as you can get so it cools fast without sliding down the sides, or even better buy a can of air and spay the chocolate so it sets faster.

I forget to say that you can also glaze the top of the tart with the apple or apricot jelly as well so it looks nice and shiny and even more appealing. If you want your berries to look really red you could use strawberry jelly instead.